Festival

Blue Car

Newcomer Agnes Bruckner and David Strathairn star in 'Blue Car,' a Miramax release about a dysfuntional family, written and directed by Karen Moncrieff.

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Meg (Bruckner) is a smart teenager with a promising literary talent. Pained by the disappearance of her father from their lives after the breakup of her parents' marriage, and unable to communicate with her overworked mother (Margaret Colin), she veers between exasperation and affectionate concern for her emotionally scarred kid sister Lily (Regan Arnold).

Expressing her sorrow through the poetry she writes for her high school English class, Meg is encouraged by her teacher Mr. Auster (Strathairn) to enter a national contest for young poets. A once-promising novelist, he begins mentoring her, pushing her to go deeper within herself to expose her nerve center through her work.

Meg begins to rely heavily on Auster for friendship, support and understanding as her relationship with her mother becomes increasingly difficult and Lily's instability worsens, eventually leading to tragedy.

Running away to Florida to compete in the poetry contest finals, Meg gets a closer glimpse of Auster's weaknesses and of his own fractured family, learning enough about herself in a harsh, eye-opening experience to return home and attempt to start a new life.

Many of the ingredients here are the standard stuff of emotional dramas dealing with broken families, but Moncrieff's skillful handling makes the material resonant and compelling. The script's alternately harsh and tender observations, and its refusal to judge, make the relationships ring painfully true. The director maintains such a delicate approach through to the final section that when Auster and Meg's relationship goes beyond the teacher-student connection into more dangerous territory, the transgression carries quite a brutal jolt.

Bruckner's mature, measured work makes Meg's bruised vulnerability and her search for a father-figure especially moving, while Strathairn effectively keeps his feelings under wraps for much of the action, finally revealing his character to be a sad, fraudulent man.

Moncrieff draws strong work all round from the cast, including Colin as a mother too burdened by problems and bitterness to even contemplate concrete solutions and Frances Fisher in a brief but incisive turn as Auster's unhappy, abrasive wife.

Modest production is crisply shot in an unfussy style that offers no distraction from the characters and their emotional journeys.

Camera (Deluxe color), Rob Sweeney; editor, Toby Yates; music, Stuart Spencer-Nash; production/costume designer, Kristan Andrews; sound, Mark Ferrell; line producer, Karri O'Reilly; associate producers, John Mays, Don Daniels, Kelly Simpson; assistant director, Matt Corrado; casting, Wendy Weidman. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (American Spectrum), Jan. 11, 2002. Running time: 96 MIN.